Tag: Philosophy

un-rushed

Posted on by Ajmal
Principal Photography: Netta Edited & Styled by The Border Of A Mind Studios

The pace of the world has slowed from within through a gradual change in perspective. I’ve mirrored the same. I’ve made more time to listen—to my heart, to the new season ahead of me. At these times, I choose happiness over disorder. These are the times when my steps sing with delight. These are the times when I am my most authentic, real, and honest self. In silence, I realize how much I run throughout my days. I realize how infrequently I pause to collect my breath. This reality kindles something within. It weakens because I know I’m not supposed to spend my life swayed under this rush .The more I pray about my pace, the more I realize it has taken me nowhere. I’ve only discovered emptiness in the midst of the chaos. But in my slowness, I’ve discovered richness. I’ve merely found potential for growth and recollection. I’ve just come to believe in more and more grace. When I go back on my recollections, I just want to remember the quiet, simple, and peaceful moments. Nothing is more precious to me now than chasing harmony via divine affirmation rather than earthly approval. The world is continually in motion. And all too often, I emulate its shaky steps. I strive to keep up with its unpredictability and unbalance, but I always fail in its middle. In silent and peaceful prayers, I come to respect how I was never intended to seek anything other than pure, honest, and sincere rest—the sort that takes me to the route I was always meant to travel and the tale I was always meant to live. In short, try to feel and experience every moment. God bless : )

intangible sway

Posted on by Ajmal

You may believe you have no influence in this world. Yet, someone hears a tune on the radio that makes them think of you. Someone has been lost in the pages of a book you suggested to them. Someone on the bus recalled a joke you told them and giggled to themselves. Someone put on a shirt and felt stunning because you complemented it. Someone has a recollection of you that makes them smile. Someone is sipping a drink from a cup that you gifted them with. Someone now loves themselves even more since you made a casual remark that made them feel wonderful. Never underestimate your effect; your fingerprints can’t be removed from the little acts of kindness you’ve left behind.

Holding Ehan’s hands on a calm morning of the weekend | theborderofamind.com

gradualist gains

Posted on by Ajmal

I’ve always experienced and perceived that organic and holistic growth is always incremental and gradual instead of a sporadic leap. Incremental, constant progress over a long time frame is the recipe for the mastery of a craft, purposeful, fulfilling education, powerful aquisition of skill sets, learning something totally new (like learning a language, for example), etc. Small successes aggregate to produce massive change over time. Although the outcomes may not be spectacular right away, they will be long-lasting. And the accumulation of multiple modest gains is sometimes as potent, if not more powerful, than efforts to make large jumps. The same is true for personal change. People who make a difference always begin slowly, one person at a time. It is not completed entirely at once. It’s done gradually.

“And I’ve noticed something about people who make a difference in the world: They hold the unshakable conviction that individuals are extremely important, that every life matters. They get excited over one smile. They are willing to feed one stomach, educate one mind, and treat one wound. They aren’t determined to revolutionize the world all at once; they’re satisfied with small changes. Over time, though, the small changes add up. Sometimes they even transform cities and nations, and yes, the world. “

– Beth Clark

knowing to wait.

Posted on by Ajmal

“Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait” told Leo Tolstoy once.
This is a very profound statement on exercising patience and unravelling the beauty of persistence. This broadly applies to everything small and big and could be a material entity, an experience or anything longed for that matter. This can also imply on working very hard on a potential opportunity found. It’s a beautiful, yet hard phase of being unshattered and unwavered by provocation, misfortune, annoyances. It’s a work in progress on let’s say a willingness to bite down restlessness and anger when confronted with delay. It’s in that calm state of mind yearned for in a soul with steady perseavarance, gentle dillingence and even tempered care. It’s a powerful deployment for endurance. Every uncertainity, every hardship (small or large as battles fought within are different and real for different people), every misfortune on the outset is an opportunity for doing things different and to walk out of your usual comfort zone. Relying on divine will and being calm and composed no matter what happens, is one of the biggest comforts of this life. Me, you, everyone is a work in progress. God bless !

comfort bubbles.

Posted on by Ajmal
From a stroll through Buyukada Islands in Turkey in 2016

“Comfort is a drug. Once you get used to it, it becomes addicting. Give a weak person consistent stimulation, good food, cheap entertainment and they’ll throw their ambitions right out the window. The comfort zone is where dreams go and die.”

Mind Journal

For everyone, there are these invisible bubbles around them. Within this bubble, there’s a safe haven of familiarity, safety, easiness and security. There’s a broad, wide world of experiences outside this bubble. Growth advances significantly during adversity, when we’re outside the bubble or when situations force us to delve out this bubble. Writer Shaa Zainol says in one of her writings that moving beyond of your comfort zone does not mean that you must grow outside of your familiar surroundings, but rather that you must try something new in order to add different gems to your life. It all begins with your own heart, which should resemble conviction, enthusiasm, and consistent determinations.
Peacefully tackling uncertainty outside the comfort bubble is a key to different beauties of life. Like how we perceive universe as so vast, so are the faculties of mind and to expand the boundaries. Even in small things, if we change our thoughts to be more embracing, more agile, that changes the way we see and handle things. God bless ! : )

nourishing the craft.

Posted on by Ajmal

Delving deep into the inner depths of a creative process has always been my piece of cake. I get thoroughly excited by souls who put that extra effort to have a signature in everything they do. They have that inner enticement of fulfilling and perfecting their craft. In my view which could be limited, I personally believe technology blended with liberal arts has been the most path breaking combination that has had an enduring ascendancy on most creatives & the creative process. It’s said that in art, the creative process generally include stages of inspiration leading to percolation which paves the way for the preparation which eventually culminates to the creation and eventually the period of reflection. I have always felt that such stages are applicable for any sort of creative process. It could be a painter working on a thoughtful abstract, an engineer working on a technical solution to a structural impasse, a poet making finishing touches to a sagacious prose, a dancer choreographing a graceful slide, a sculptor chiseling an authentic portrait. It could be anyone. It could be you.

Spectators visiting pavilions at Expo 2020, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, December 2021



I’ve been flicking through some of the excerpts from the book ” The Meaning in the Making ” by the renowned photographer Sean Tucker. In it he outlines a philosophy for a creative life. I like his laser focus on the creative process. He writes:

“When we pick up a paintbrush, or compose elements through our camera viewfinders, or press fingers into wet clay to wrestle form from a shapeless lump, we are bending things back toward Order and wrestling them from Chaos. But making things is often not enough.

We also want the things we make to be filled with meaning. We’re each trying to describe what we know about life, to create a collective sense of “safety in numbers.” When we reach the end of our traditional descriptive powers, it’s time to weave collective meaning from poetry, painting, writing, dancing, photographing, filmmaking, storytelling, singing, animating, designing, performing, carving, sculpting, and a million other ways we daily create Order out of the Chaos and share it with each other for comfort.

“

— Sean Tucker , The Meaning in the Making

irrigating passion

Posted on by Ajmal
a capture of my brother photographing the wide gardens near Ras Al khor wildlife sanctuary in the UAE.

Lately, I have been thoroughly pondering on the aspect of irrigating the mind. Experiences and my reads have encompassed me with the discernment that the soul has to be irrigated for consistency and to be filled with life. Our faith, trust, passions, love and life as a whole needs to be irrigated. The passions are to be fuelled to keep them from dying how dwarfed it might be in the rush of our lives. We’ve to hold to that rope and do our best in a positive sense within our individual means and situations to kindle the fire of aspects and things we are passionate about. Don’t leave them away. Don’t let the chores and events crush your passions and dreams. The border of a mind is a signature that I’m endeavoring with the limited time I’ve to candle a flame I’ve for art, visual imagery and a positive vibe in general. With you, I’m trying to remember that even though data has a decisive role on much of life’s decision making, it’s truly passion that provides purpose and an organic direction of where we’re heading to. We’ve to rewind that in our mind in channeling time.

Remember Job from the Heart that we talked about few years back ?
I’d like to link this as well: Quality | indelible objectivity

You’ll only take what you’ve given.

Posted on by Ajmal

Really liked this post. It’s always good to have reality checks to alleviate the rushness we’re driven through. The post was originally written in French. I’m sharing it in English.

Art based on a memory from a stroll at Armenian streets couple of years back.
When you die, don't worry about your body... your loved ones will do whatever it takes according to their means.
They will undress you,
You will be washed
They will dress you
They will take you out of your house and drive you to your new address.
Many will come to your funeral to say goodbye. Some will cancel appointments and even miss their work to go to your funeral.

Your possessions, even what you did not like will be loaned, sold, offered or burned.
Your keys
Your tools
Your books
Your CDs
Your shoes
Your clothes...

And be sure that the
the world will not stop to cry for you.
Everything will continue.
In your work, you will be replaced. Someone with the same or better abilities will take your place.

Your property will go to your heirs....
And don't doubt that you will continue to be quoted, judged, and criticized for the small and big things you've done in life.

Your sincere friends will cry for a few hours or days, but then they will return to their daily lives.

The "friends" who challenge you, will forget you faster.

Your pets will get used to the new owner.

Your photos will remain hanging on the wall for a while or remain on a piece of furniture, but then they will be stored at the bottom of a drawer.

Someone else will sit on your couch and eat at your table.

The deep pain in your home will last a week, two, a month, two, a year, two... Then you will be added to the memories and then your story will end.

It will be finished for yours, finished here, finished in this world.
But will begin your story in your new reality... your life after death.
Your life where you will not be able to move with things from here because in addition, by leaving, they will have lost the value they had.
Body
Beauty
Appearance
Surname
Comfort
Credit
Status
Position
Bank account
House
Car
Profession
Securities
Diplomas
Medals
Trophies
Friends
Places
Spouse
Family...

In your new life, you won't just need your mind. And the value you have worked on here will be the only fortune that counts there.
This fortune is the only one you will take away and the one you will have amassed during the time you have lived here.

When you live a life of love for others and at peace with others, you amasse your spiritual fortune.
 That is why try to live fully and be happy as long as you are here because, from here you will not take what you have. You will only take what you have given.

beauty in gratitude.

Posted on by Ajmal
Photograph captured by Netta from Havelock Islands in Andaman, India.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

Melody Beattie